OREANDA-NEWS. April 13, 2010. An auction for selling the rights for the quotas for harvesting Pacific salmon in the economic zone of the Russian Federation took place. Competitive bidding for three lots added more than 120 million Rubles to the state budget. The action was organized following a determination of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

As a result of competition between bidders, the price of one of the auction lots increased by 732%, which brought 63 million Rubles to the budget of the Russian Federation. Competitive bidding for two other lots generated nearly 60 million Rubles for the budget.

On 27th January 2010, FAS Russia found that the Federal Fishery Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" by not taking the necessary actions to allocate the quotas for harvesting (catching) anadromous species (Pacific salmon) between Russian fishermen.

Rosrybolovstvo abolished the auction for selling the rights for the quotas for harvesting Pacific salmon, which was initially scheduled for July 2009, and failed to arrange a new auction. Therefore, Russian fishing companies were not allocated the rights for harvesting salmon in the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation in 2009. At the same time, quotas for foreign states were allocated in full in accordance with the international treaties; and as a consequence, Japanese fishing industries were able to carry on catching salmon.

FAS Russia issued a determination to Rosrybolovstvo to grant, in compliance with the statutory procedures, the rights for entering into Pacific salmon harvesting contracts to Russian fishing industries.

According to State-Secretary Andrey Tsarikovskiy, Deputy Head of FAS Russia, successful sale of quotas under separate lots is a striking example of efficiency of the auction procedures. A properly organized auction not only enables most efficient use of national natural resources, but facilitates market entry of new competitors.